The Office: "Pool Party"Review

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Everyone. Tonight. Robert California's place. Wear a swimsuit.

By Cindy White

Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

I feel like I've been a fair, and even a somewhat generous, critic of The Office in Season 8. As a longtime fan, I sincerely want it to succeed, and I know the writers faced a pretty daunting challenge to find their footing after the shakeup of losing Steve Carell. But "Pool Party" may have finally have convinced me to join the ranks of those disappointed viewers who have declared the series over, creatively speaking. There were points during the episode where I questioned what show I was watching, because it sure didn't seem like The Office.

For the second week in a row, the Dunder Mifflin gang ventured out of the familiar confines of the office for almost the entirety of the episode. As I've said in the past, it's always a risky proposition for a series based around a workplace to spend a lot of time outside of it, but that strategy has paid off before – as it did in "Trivia" – with some great, character-inspired comedy. Much of the problem here, though, was rooted in characters that got the focus and the scarcity of the comedy.

On the verge of selling his stately home, Robert California (with some prodding from Kevin) invites the staff over to make the most of the pool and other amenities. It's not an act of generosity so much as an opportunity for Robert to show off his wealth and complain about the demise of his marriage before a captive audience. A good portion of the episode was spent with him and some of the guys as he led them on a tour of his wannabe Playboy mansion, explaining how it never lived up to its potential because his awful, horrible ex-wife dared to have her own opinions and ideas about how to use their shared space, and they didn't include drunken orgies every night. What a shrew. The only interesting and mildly funny bit in this storyline was Oscar's assumption that Toby is a wine expert, and Toby struggling to keep up the illusion.

The other major thread in "Pool Party" was Andy losing the stoneless engagement ring he was going to give to his boring girlfriend, and Erin's failed attempts to get his attention by flirting with Dwight. As regular readers of these Office reviews probably know, I've never been a big fan of the Andy and Erin romance. Rather than taking the time to build a subtle courtship like they did with Jim and Pam (and are doing with Darryl and Val), the writers threw them together too soon, broke them up for contrived reasons and put them through a couple of awkward love triangles to stir up some romantic tension. But nothing they've done so far has succeeded in making me care whether Andy and Erin end up together. The more they try to force it, the less I want to see of either of them on screen. And that's a shame, because when used properly, they can both be fun characters individually.

A couple of notably bizarre act breaks also really spoiled the mood in this episode. The first had Dwight callously pushing Erin into the pool. Not playfully tossing her in with a laugh, mind you, but forcefully kicking her in, snarling, "You want to play, you little hick?" then reclining in a lounge chair with his eyes closed. Cut to black. Sure, Dwight can be an idiot and a jerk, but this was just petty bullying, and it felt out of character. It actually made me feel less sorry for him at the next act break, which featured a fancy underwater shot of him drowning. It was an oddly dark way for a comedy to go to a commercial, and not much of a cliffhanger anyway, since we knew he'd be revived by the time it came back. It just contributed to the sense that something was off about this episode.

Since I've been complaining about the lack of Pam for the past few weeks, I'll hold back on that front for now (though her absence was definitely felt). There were plenty of other nits to pick this week. Like Angela's presence at the party. She was pregnant around the same time as Pam, so why isn't she also on maternity leave? I also had to wonder whether it was a good idea to show Jim peeling away like that after he'd been swigging down wine all night. I'm going to give the writers the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't intend to get laughs out of Jim driving home drunk. I get that he was just desperate to get away, and with Meredith boxing him in, he had no choice. But it was a bit tone deaf to the potential audience perception that might arise from the way it was filmed.

Which, as it happens, turns out to be symptomatic of the way the writers have been approaching the show all season. The Office used to be a thoughtful show, but lately it seems like the less thought you put into it, the more enjoyment you'll get.